


The Sunset Dialogue

by Thalassophobia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Gets High on Space Cactus and Kinda Talks About His Feelings, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:12:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28409781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalassophobia/pseuds/Thalassophobia
Summary: Stranded in the desert, Ahsoka makes conversation with her Master and gets more information than she bargained for.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 48





	The Sunset Dialogue

Ahsoka pondered the events of the day while drawing figures in the sand; she considered the things her Master had said and the confidence with which he’d said them.

Anakin Skywalker was the straight-forward sort. Ahsoka understood that. She could work with that. What she couldn’t understand was how a person could be so self-assured in the face of literal 70/30 chance with the odds against you? Ahsoka supposed it was a skill she would learn too as she progressed in her Jedi studies – the art of lying through your teeth. Well, Master Skywalker hadn’t lied exactly. It’s not exactly a lie if you believe it. He’d just been wrong is all. Even Jedi Knights could be wrong. She didn’t know why she’d ever thought different.

Still, Ahsoka couldn’t find it in her to be angry with him, feeling half responsible for their current predicament. The other half was, of course, Master Skywalker’s but Jedi were supposed to be forgiving so Ahsoka had forgiven him for crashing the ship and he had forgiven her for forgetting to refuel the jumpspeeders. By his calculations, it would take two days to reach the end of the desert and another two to reach the rendezvous point. Ahsoka had had her misgivings about him from time to time, but Master Skywalker hadn’t hesitated to give her the bigger share of water. After the crash, he had made a makeshift hat to cover her montrals and even bundled her up in his outer robes to keep the sun from searing her skin.

He’d claimed, having grown up in a desert, he had an immunity to the heat. “And what kind of Master would I be if I don’t watch your back?” he’d said. He was a fully trained Jedi Knight, after all. He was strong, after all. A little heat wouldn’t do him in. If need be, he could just feed off the living Force. Or so he’d claimed.

Regardless of how fine he’d asserted he was, her Master had drained the last of his water half a day into their journey. He’d fallen to his knees more than once and tripped over his feet when they’d came across a collection of cacti. They’d been round with thin spines and looked an awful lot like the scaled-up version of the pin cushions Master Nu liked to use.

It was twilight now.

She checked on Anakin again. His pulse was good, if a bit fast and he didn’t look to have any trouble breathing. Whatever had been in that cactus juice had knocked him out cold.

Ahsoka pulled the robes tight around her. A chill had seized the air. She never imagined becoming a Padawan would mean fighting a war. Normal Padawans traveled the galaxy with their Masters and resolved conflict so it’s possible she’d see a sight like this anyway, but taking in her surroundings Ahsoka felt something strange. It wasn’t gratefulness, because that would be disrespectful to all those who were dying for this war. You aren’t grateful for a war. But the night sky was orange and pink and indigo; the sands of this planet were pure black and glittered in the dying light. The Creche Masters spoke of the galaxy mostly in a spiritual sense as it related to the Force.

They never really told her how pretty the galaxy was. Even a planet determined to turn the two of them into raisins.

She felt before she saw.

Master Skywalker’s presence in the Force blinked twice, bright as a flare. Then, he jerked into consciousness, dusty hair going every which way. He sat up, hunched. The shadows from the campfire pooled around his eyes, made him look sharper than normal. Black sand stuck to his neck and one of his cheeks, the grains clumping in a line across his face all the way to his ear. Ahsoka snorted. He’d been drooling.

“Welcome back, Skyguy.”

He blinked, bleary-eyed.

“Snips?”

“Remember what you said before you filled your canteen with cactus juice? Because I sure do. Word for word, in fact.”

He’d noticed the sand and began swatting it off him. “Snips, I promise I’ll give you gloating time later –”

“ – See this cactus, Ahsoka,” she said, putting her fists on her hips and dropping her voice as low as it’d go. “Either it’s a spotted blue cactus which is a great source of water and minerals or it’s an azure spotted cactus which causes hallucinations while being a great source of water and minerals.”

Anakin gave her a withering look, the kind he usually got from Master Kenobi. Ahsoka matched his look with a smile. “Do you remember what kind of cactus it was, Master?”

“Wrong cactus.”

She threw her hands up. “Wrong cactus!”

“You seem fine so I’m guessing I wasn’t too much trouble.”

“Besides stopping to build a sand palace, getting into a fist fight with a venom-spitting greenback, rambling and raving, then passing out cold, yeah. A regular walk in the park.”

Ahsoka reached for a lizard on a stick she’d caught, cooked, and set aside while he was out. They were good sized creatures with diamonds on their back. She’d only needed to eat two to feel full. “Want some charred lizard? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime Ahsoka specialty.”

Anakin made a grabbing motion as she handed it over. He tore into the reptile with gusto. “Tastes like redwater jerky. I’ve had worse. Not bad cooking, Snips.” He was cleaning the bones in no time. Ahsoka tossed him another.

“So,” he drawled, “what kind of stuff did I ramble about?”

“The beauty of cybernetics.”

“Okay, that’s good then.”

Ahsoka drew a little smiley face in the sand.

“So,” she drawled, “you grew up on Tatooine?”

Given that he wasn’t one to volunteer information about himself, she figured now was a good time as any to ask.

Anakin winced and spat a bone into the fire.

“Ahsoka, if I told you something…just…you gotta tell me so I can explain.”

“Okay? You didn’t talk about Tatooine though. Remember the mission with the huttlet?”

“Oh yeah. That’s right.”

Anakin stared her down, seemingly dissatisfied with her answer. There was an unfocused look about him. He squinted, blinking hard and ran a hand through his hair. The cactus juice was still working its magic, apparently. Ahsoka just prayed she wouldn’t have to chase him down again. The first thing he’d done when the juice kicked in was take off sprinting. Ahsoka had nearly lost him in the sea of black.

“I didn’t grow up on Tatooine,” Anakin said, lying back. “I was just born there. I grew up at the Temple, same as you. You grow up by making decisions and then mistakes. It’s kind of hard to make decisions for yourself when one step too far from home means the explosive chip in your neck going off.”

“Master, I don’t follow.”

“Really? You’re smarter than that, Ahsoka. Put it together.”

“You were a slave.”

“Up until I was taken to the Temple at age ten.”

Ahsoka fumbled for the right words and eventually settled on the ones that best described the tightness in her chest. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Had to leave my mother there. On Tatooine. I left her to become a Jedi.”

“Your mother?”

“Shmi Skywalker.”

“That must have been painful.”

“It was. I was angry about it for the longest time though I hid it as best I could. I thought Jedi could do anything, but they couldn’t free her. Just me. And I know what you’re thinking, Snips.” Ahsoka wasn’t sure he did, especially since she hardly knew what to think herself. Anakin recited the words. “Anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering and all the rest, but it’s _rage_ that’ll get you in trouble with the Order. Not anger. It’s rage that breaks the Codes.”

“Okay, now you’ve really lost me.”

“Anger and rage are two different things, young Padawan. I hate to think of it, but you’ll learn the difference for yourself one day. Rage and love are cut from the same cloth. Only fools try to control them. The more you force them down, the stronger they get, the stronger they fester. You’ve got to channel rage. Give it direction otherwise you might as well be holding a grenade with a sticky detonator. Anger, on the other hand, is a tool. Anger can keep a person alive. Lots of folk live like that. In fact, the most vivid memories I have of my mother are like that.”

“She was never angry with me,” Anakin continued. “As a slave, they strip you of whatever they can so that you’re easier to control. It’s all about control, Snips. Your happiness. Your sadness. Your anger. It’s _theirs_. They allow you to feel those things. _‘Who the hell do you think you are to be smilin’ like that?’, ‘Hey, slave scum! Don’t you dare start crying. Your kind don’t get to cry.’, ‘Oh, you’re angry, ain’t you boy? You have a right to be I know, but you are a slave, boy. Anger like that will just get you killed.’_ In some places they even take your name. Can you imagine? Well, my mother was sweet and kind and kept her anger hidden so she got to keep it. I remember how she’d sit at the kitchen table after a day’s work and she’d grip the side of it so hard I thought she’d break a corner off. And her nails would make this awful sound, scraping grooves into the wood. They never broke her though. Never.”

“Your mother sounds like a strong woman.”

“Strong, yeah. Shmi Skywalker was strong as beskar and I think, I honestly believe she’d have razed planets to dust if given half a chance. Probably why the Force never gave her one.”

“Anakin?”

“She died on Tatooine years ago. I found her beaten and tortured and she died in my arms.”

Ahsoka went cold as Anakin’s presence in the Force shifted. He lowered the defenses he usually had up. She sensed the weight of everything flowing from him like a broken dam. Like a blanket made of iron, like a million million pinpricks. It made her want to cry. It made her want to scream. It was suffocating. Ahsoka got to her feet and sat crisscross next to him. He didn’t sit up or even move. Anakin kept his eyes on the night sky.

There was nothing she could say to him so Ahsoka closed her eyes and concentrated on pouring out acknowledgement. Emotions were hard enough to grasp on their own let alone factoring in the Force. Ahsoka projected sympathy and comfort and kindness and _it’s not fair._

She heard him let out a harsh breath, more of a wheeze than a laugh.

“Thanks, Ahsoka.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her voice sounded small in her own ears. She’d seen death of course, but tonight Ahsoka realized how lucky she was. All of her loved ones were alive. Besides a funeral, she wasn’t sure what a person does or who they call in that situation. So she asked, “What did you do?”

Anakin got that faraway look again.

“I raged.”


End file.
